One of the largest complaints we hear is ‘my social efforts are not doing anything. ‘How do we measure the results (if any) we a re achieving?’When you decided to open your business you created a business plan. When you created your website, you developed content and method to drive people to your business. When you started advertising, you established a budget and a plan of what you will advertise when. Social Media is not any different.

The “Build It and They Will Come” theory no longer works for social media. It may have in the beginning, but not now. You need to drive engagement, give fans, followers and connections a reason to visit your pages, a reason to share, a reason to engage, a reason to buy from you. To do this, you need a plan!

When you created your business plan, we’re pretty sure you would have completed a SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). We believe the same should be done before tackling your social media plan, but first you need to determine your marketing goals for social media. In other words – what do you want to achieve by using Social Media.

Ask yourself a few questions:

1. Does my company need more awareness – knowledge that my business exists, to learn about my products or services?

2. Do I want to drive social connections to my website, to my store, to my blog, to your newsletter sign-up link, sales?

3. Do I want to /can I be recognized as a leader in my field?

4. Do I want to / can I be more involved in the community?

5. Do I want to / can I educate my potential customers?

6. Do I want to / can I offer information useful to consumers’ buying decisions?

7. Do I hold events that would be interesting to others?

This list could go on and on. In answering these questions you will ultimately determine what your goals for utilizing social media will be. Once you have your goals firmly in place, you can start working on your editorial content plan. Here’s a link to Bonfire Social Media’s ‘Top 3 Goals of Social Media Marketing”. You might find this interesting, maybe even helpful.

We ran across this presentation on Slideshare that was almost perfect for this blog so we thought we’d share it with you. It will give you an idea of writing content and where to find it. It also talks about goal setting, and what platforms to use for your business.